France - railways, public transport, services and incidents (merged posts)

[whole diary]

[stuving]

Two more night train services from Paris started at the weekend - to Aurillac on Sunday and from Berlin (with Nightjet) yesterday. Like other night trains they offer seats, couchettes, and cabins, (also typically) neither runs every night. The news report I saw of the Aurillac ones - reintroduced after a gap of 20 years - was convinced these trains would be going de-dum de-dum (which sounds very similar in French).

[Mark A]

This Aurillac? Attempting to work out the route...

Mark


https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9280482,2.4003895,10973m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu

[Mark A]

*Finds the route* OK, the Aurillac train will use infrastructure such as this. (The overbridge at the tunnel portal is the same road that crosses the line, hairpin-bend-climbing the valley side...)

Mark

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9799216,2.0284642,3a,75y,272.68h,83.52t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sdE9boWfjTG6DhC7nvsZ4wQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu

[stuving]

*Finds the route* OK, the Aurillac train will use infrastructure such as this. (The overbridge at the tunnel portal is the same road that crosses the line, hairpin-bend-climbing the valley side...)

Yes, a bit rustic, isn't it? Of course the minimalist railway line still leads to a proper-sized station in Aurillac.

And the train fits that rustic image - three carriages tacked on the end of the existing night train to Rodez (and Albi on Fridays), where it stays for five hours before its final trundle up to Aurillac. It calls at the major metropolises of Laroquebrou, Bretenoux-Biars and Saint-Denis près Martel.

[Mark A]

Now wondering if a: accompanied bikes would be ok and b: if they are, whether there'd be the same shenanigans imposed as at Edinburgh, where passengers with cycles, when the train is divided, are required to be up and about to transfer them between portions.

Mark

[stuving]

Now wondering if a: accompanied bikes would be ok and b: if they are, whether there'd be the same shenanigans imposed as at Edinburgh, where passengers with cycles, when the train is divided, are required to be up and about to transfer them between portions.

Mark

Somewhere I saw, in a description of the new generation of sleeper stock, that they include space for bicycles. The French services are still using 70s Corail coaches, albeit done up. I imagine the new ones they are ordering are likely to be the same as in Austria etc.

[Mark A]

*Finds the route* OK, the Aurillac train will use infrastructure such as this. (The overbridge at the tunnel portal is the same road that crosses the line, hairpin-bend-climbing the valley side...)

Yes, a bit rustic, isn't it? Of course the minimalist railway line still leads to a proper-sized station in Aurillac.

And the train fits that rustic image - three carriages tacked on the end of the existing night train to Rodez (and Albi on Fridays), where it stays for five hours before its final trundle up to Aurillac. It calls at the major metropolises of Laroquebrou, Bretenoux-Biars and Saint-Denis près Martel.

Ah, Saint-Denis près Martel. Looks like that's now the lower end of the preserved railway the 'Chemin-de-fer touristique du Haute Quercy', which may still offer, as well as travel over an ambitious piece of railway engineering, the experience of being in an open sided carriage behind a small steam loco doing its best in a curved single track tunnel on a steep climb, the loco exhaust somehow being very well behaved and confining itself to the roof of the tunnel. Mostly.

Mark

https://trainduhautquercy.info/the-journey-railway/?lang=en

[stuving]

Ah, Saint-Denis près Martel. Looks like that's now the lower end of the preserved railway the 'Chemin-de-fer touristique du Haute Quercy', which may still offer, as well as travel over an ambitious piece of railway engineering, the experience of being in an open sided carriage behind a small steam loco doing its best in a curved single track tunnel on a steep climb, the loco exhaust somehow being very well behaved and confining itself to the roof of the tunnel. Mostly.

The publicity for the train touristique says it goes to Saint-Denis lès Martel, but only so as to come back again. Historically the commune was Saint-Denis lès Martel, but the station half a mile away was named Saint-Denis près Martel - presumably on the grounds that lès was Occitan not French. So it's hard to say where the train reverses.

This is the upper valley of the Dordogne, and that river has had its turn to flood this week (there's been an awful lot of it about in France for well over a month). I've not heard this area mentioned, but the stream next to Saint-Denis is ominously named la Tourmente.

[stuving]

The introduction of free travel travel on the city's public transport network was announced some time ago, but today is the first day of full operation. From Euronews (last month):

Montpellier is getting ready to launch its free public transport scheme ahead of Christmas.

Montpellier in southern France is getting ready to introduce free public transport on 21 December.

It will become the largest French metropolis to boast such a scheme.

From next month, local residents will be able to utilise a free transport pass across the city’s bus and tram network. The scheme aims to slash emissions, reduce pollution and improve accessibility for the city’s residents.

“By introducing free transport, we are bold in taking a great measure of social justice, of progress, which works for the ecological transition,” tweeted the mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse when the scheme was announced earlier this year.

Montpellier has been experimenting with free transport on weekends since September 2020. In 2021, it extended this to weekdays for under-18s and over-65s.

The further extension of the scheme is part of the city’s €150 million push for zero carbon mobility, which also includes investment in cycle lanes and the creation of a low emissions zone.
Where else has free transport in France?

Montpellier is far from being a trailblazer. In fact, French towns and cities have been rolling out such schemes since the country’s transport management was decentralised in 2015.

However the majority of these have less than 150,000 inhabitants.

With almost 200,000 inhabitants, Dunkirk is the largest city to have embraced free transport so far. After it introduced fare-free bus routes in 2018, passenger numbers increased by an average of 85 per cent.

In this case it does not extend to trains, which the city does not run - and in any case the TER service is limited. Just one line along the coast, serving some villages, though trains are quite frequent. To benefit, residents have to go to the appropriate office and get a pass of the kind previously restricted to just the deserving (by age, mostly). Visitors still need a ticket, so presumably the existing purchase methods will continue - at least for now.

The step up from Dunkerque is not that big really - less than double the population - but Montpellier ranks as a city not a town. Montpellier does have some previous for radical action to remove cars from the city centre, going back to the time of the long-serving and somewhat dictatorial mayor Georges Frêche.

[stuving]

And if it's a freezing cold January evening? An Intercités (so locomotive-hauled) train left Paris-Bercy for Clermont-Ferrand at 18:57 last night, due to arrive 22:31. But the loco broke down and its back-up had to come from Paris. So it was stuck with 700 passengers and no power - no heat or light - until the local fire & rescue and Red Cross turned up with emergency supplies of survival blankets and food.

Which isn't good, obviously. But why it was rated as a life-threatening incident is less clear. Help arrived after 2.5 hours, and the internal temperature never got below about 10^o - so were there really passenger without seasonable outer clothing? The rescue dragged the train back to a station (Montargis) before swapping locos, which took time, so they arrived at 6:20. I assume these old Corail carriages at least have toilets that work without electricity!

From SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways)'s viewpoint, they will shortly get some new trains for these services (TGVs^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) adapted to not be TGVs). The current materiel is thus on a make do and mend programme until withdrawal, and of course failures get more frequent.

[stuving]

We had news of Railcoop before, trying to set up a worker-owned operator of long-distance regional trains.

There are also two groups setting up similar operations but of high-speed trains. All of these are slowly working their way through the required steps: approval by the regulator (ART), negotiation of a track access agreement with SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) Réseau, raising their starting capital, and signing a deal with a manufacturer to buy the trains (not in that order).

Le Train wants to operate in the west of France, linking Nantes with Bordeaux partly on LGVs^▸ (Large Goods Vehicle) but not going via Paris. They have a deal with Talgo for ten trains, for delivery by 2025.

Kevin Speed (no, really!) aim to do a Lumo, more or less, from Paris to Lille, Strasbourg, and Lyon. The are touting very low prices (down to €3), and targeting frequent travellers with a discount based on recent ussage. They have just announced an access deal with SNCF Réseau, and got a lot of TV coverage from it, but don't have a deal for trains yet. Their trains will be branded "ilisto" - I have no idea why. ("Kevin" has become quite popular as a name in France recently, and has a "popular", as opposed to elitist, image.)

[stuving]

As expected, Systra has been mis en examen (roughly charged) and SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) is expected to follow in a few days. That allows for formal questioning, though how cautioning works with a company I'm not sure.

Finally, with all the urgency we've come to expect of the French legal system, the trial of several bits of SNCF, including Systra, began today. Here from RFI:

Trial of deadly 2015 high speed train crash opens in Paris

The French national rail operator, SNCF, along with two of its subsidiaries and three rail workers are due to appear at the Paris criminal court at the start of a two month trial for their role in the accident involving a high speed TGV^▸ (Train a Grande Vitesse) train on a test run in 2014 that left 11 people dead and 42 injured.

Issued on: 04/03/2024 - 11:53

The SNCF and its subsidiaries Systra and SNCF Réseau are on trial for “injury and involuntary homicide” for the 14 November 2015 accident that killed 11 of the 53 people on board the train and injured everyone else.

The defendants are facing 88 civil parties, including survivors who were not employees, but were on board the train anyway.

The crash occurred near Strasbourg, in eastern France, on what was supposed to be the final test run of the new high-speed line connecting the city with Paris.

The train struck a bridge and derailed, breaking in two as it landed in the Marne-Rhine canal.

Systra, the company responsible for railway tests, is being prosecuted for its decision to try a test speed of 330 kilometres – the train’s upper limit - rather than the 187 kilometre per hour operating speed.

A 2017 investigation that lead to the charges against the defendants concluded the train’s drivers had not received the necessary training to carry out such high-speed tests.
Non-employees on board

The three companies are accused of failing to take precautions to prevent “inappropriate actions of the driving team in terms of braking”.

On board the train were employees as well as their guests, including four children, and one of the questions in the trial is why non-employees were on board.

SNCF and Systra, as the test operators, and the project owner, SNCF Réseau, face fines of up to €225,000 if found guilty in the trial that runs through 16 May.

Two SNCF employees, including the train’s driver, and one Systra employee will also be on trial, facing maximum sentences of three years in prison and fines of up to €45,000 each.

During the investigation, the lawyers for all the defendants suggested that they would be pleading for acquittal.

Including the driver in this trial seems particularly harsh, given what he's been through and how responsibility was described in the report as lying mainly with others. No doubt there would have been others but they wel killed in the accident.

Mind you, I don't think (without thoroughly revising the subject) the points picked out in that piece are the key ones. They may of course be present in a much longer legal text.

[stuving]

Two SNCF^▸ (Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais - French National Railways) employees, including the train’s driver, and one Systra employee will also be on trial, facing maximum sentences of three years in prison and fines of up to €45,000 each.

That's a bit misleading; all three of the people who collectively drove the train are on trial. The reports are not using the same terminology as the BEA-TT report (based on SNCF's documents) either. Those three were the hands-on driver, a driver manager who told him what to do and when, and a Systra engineer who handed over the "script" to the other two and then was meant to monitor the trial and answer technical questions. 

[stuving]

This lot have not been making much news for a while, but it now appears they have been trying to find backers with real useful money to spend on stuff - and failing. There is, of course, no substitute, even if you do have some keen volunteers line up. This from Railway Gazette International:

Railcoop on brink of liquidation as financing gap stymies restructuring hope

By Railway Gazette International17 April 2024

FRANCE: Open access co-operative Railcoop is expected to be formally liquidated on April 29, the company President Nicolas Debaisieux has confirmed.

The collapse of the co-operative comes after it was placed into judicial administration on October 16 for a period of up to six months. With this period now expiring, a hearing was held at the administrative court in Cahors on April 15 to begin arranging the formalities for creditors, two weeks ahead of the formal liquidation.

While this would bring to an end the idea of using a co-operative model to launch open access trains such as Railcoop’s planned Lyon – Bordeaux service, Debaisieux believes that the project could still be salvaged through outside investment. Railcoop had been planning to restructure itself into an operating business and an asset management ‘opco’.

The co-operative has been negotiating with investment fund Serena Partners and a rolling stock leasing company with a view to progressing the proposed restructuring. According to Debaisieux, these investors had secured 60% of the €11m required to establish the planned Lyon – Limoges - Bordeaux open access service, but this still left a €3·5m gap in the business plan...

[grahame]

Slow but sure. New services on France's underutilized railway lines.

The subject line struck me when it came up again this morning

From Amiens, 9 platforms (at least) the other day.  For the next three hours - 7 departures and all to different destinations; I had 2 hours to wait for my "connection" - arrived from Lille and onward service to Rouen only running a few times each day.  Another wait there of well over an hour for a train to Dieppe.